Each week, SPIN digs into the catalogs of great artists and highlights songs you might not know for our Deep Cut Friday series.
Bruce Springsteen’s sixth album Nebraska was a pivot away from the spotlight, released in between two hit-filled blockbuster albums, 1980’s The River and 1984’s Born in the U.S.A. Living in relative seclusion in Colts Neck, New Jersey, in 1981, Springsteen documented his new songs with a four-track recorder, making stark acoustic demos that he decided could be an album unto itself. Nebraska was critically acclaimed and modestly successful, eventually going platinum, and became a cornerstone of Springsteen’s artistic legacy. In the last few weeks, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere hit theaters, with Jeremy Allen White playing the Boss during the creation of Nebraska, and Springsteen released an expanded reissue of the album.
Bruce Springsteen’s affinity for the New York punk scene may have surprised a few people at the time. The Phil Spector-inspired maximalism and romance of Born to Run was a far cry from the grit of the CBGBs bands, but he did take note of what was happening across the Hudson River. In 1978, Patti Smith and Springsteen co-wrote her biggest hit “Because the Night,” and two years later Springsteen nearly gave away one of his signature songs, “Hungry Heart,” to the Ramones. The CBGBs band that inspired Springsteen the most, though, was Suicide, the duo of Martin Rev and Alan Vega. One of Nebraska’s darkest tracks, “State Trooper,” was directly influenced by “Frankie Teardrop,” the 10-minute centerpiece of Suicide’s 1977 self-titled debut.
“Frankie Teardrop,” built on Rev’s eerie synthesizers and ticking drum machine, is about a suicidal factory worker. “State Trooper,” with a simple guitar-and-vocal arrangement, is about a man driving a stolen car and hoping not to get pulled over. Despite the very different instrumentation, the two songs share an eerie, paranoid atmosphere and intense, heavily reverbed vocal performances. “Deliver me from nowhere,” Springsteen softly sings before “State Trooper” ends with a startling howl reminiscent of Alan Vega’s vocal on the climax of “Frankie Teardrop.”
In 2005, Springsteen began covering Suicide’s 1979 single “Dream Baby Dream” in concert, eventually recording it for his 2014 album High Hopes. Vega died in 2016, and last year, Springsteen wrote the foreword for Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere’s biography Infinite Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega. “‘Frankie Teardrop’ – that was incredible. That might be his greatest piece of work right there,” Springsteen wrote. “It was something I really related to. And definitely inspired the way I wrote ‘State Trooper.’”
Three more essential Bruce Springsteen deep cuts:
“It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City”
The closing track on Springsteen’s 1973 debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. was the song that convinced Mike Appel to be the young singer’s manager and was part of the audition that got him signed to Columbia Records. One of Springsteen’s earliest famous fans was David Bowie, who recorded a cover of “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” in 1973, though it wouldn’t be released until 1989.
“Candy’s Room”
The fourth track on Darkness of the Edge of Town is the E Street Band at its most cinematic, Max Weinberg’s 16th note hi-hats and Roy Bittan’s surging piano constantly driving the song’s energy further and further upward.
“Bobby Jean”
One of Springsteen’s oldest friends, Steven Van Zandt, left the E Street Band shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. to focus on his solo career. The album featured “Bobby Jean,” a bittersweet song about friendship that’s been widely interpreted as a tribute to Van Zandt.
